Schöneberg is a locality of Berlin, Germany. Until Berlin’s 2001 administrative reform it was a separate borough including the locality of Friedenau. Together with the former borough of Tempelhof it is now part of the new borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg. The locality of Schöneberg includes the neighborhoods (Stadtquartiere) of Bayerisches Viertel (English: “Bavarian Quarter”), an affluent residential area with streets named after Bavarian towns) and the Rote Insel (English: “Red Island”) as well as Lindenhof and the large natural park area Südgelände (English: “south grounds”) on the outside of the Ringbahn railway circle line.
The area around Nollendorfplatz has been the heart of gay life in Berlin, since the 1920s and early–1930s during the Weimar Republic. The Eldorado nightclub on Motzstraße was closed down by the Nazis on coming to power in December 1932. Holocaust survivor Elsa Conrad co-ran the lesbian bar Mali und Igel. Inside the bar, was a club called Monbijou des Westens. The club was exclusive and catered for Berlin’s lesbian, intellectual elite; one famous guest was the actress Marlene Dietrich. Each year the club hosted balls with up to 600 women in attendance. The painter and printmaker Otto Dix used patrons of this establishment as subjects for some of his works. Christopher Isherwood lived just around the corner on Nollendorfstraße. This apartment was the basis for his book Goodbye to Berlin (1939) and later the musical Cabaret (1966) and the film Cabaret (1972) and is commemorated by a historic plaque on the building.
Headquarters of the RIAS Berlin (Radio in the American Sector) from 1948 to 1993, then headquarters of DeutschlandRadio Berlin from 1994 until the station was renamed Deutschlandradio Kultur in 2005. The building was erected in 1941 by the IG Farbenconglomerate.
Former headquarters of the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG), the public transport company of Berlin, on Potsdamer Straße
Pallasstraße Hochbunker, a former air-raid shelter, built in 1943 by forced laborers. A large social housing estate was built in 1977 to partially bridge over the bunker and to cross the street, the former site of the Berlin Sportpalast. This is where Joseph Goebbels held his 1943 “Total War” speech. It was demolished in 1973. The present housing estate is known to Berliners as the Sozialpalast (“Social Palace”).
[caption id="attachment_25484" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Jean-Baptiste Colbert by Robert Nateuil[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Jean-Baptiste Colbert was a French politician who served as the Minister of Finances of France from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His relentless hard work and thrift made him an esteemed minister. He achieved a reputation for his work of improving the state of French manufacturing and bringing the economy back from the brink of bankruptcy. Historians note that, despite Colbert's effor...
[responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The 2016 UEFA European Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2016 or simply Euro 2016, will be the 15th edition of the UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international men's football championship of Europe organized by UEFA. It is scheduled to be held in France from 10 June to 10 July 2016. Spain are two-time defending champions. For the first time, the European Championship final tournament will be contested by 24 teams, having been expanded from the 16-team format used since 1996. Under this...
